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Tony Blair and the Jargon of Modernisation Alan Finlayson

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Tony Blair and the Jargon of Modernisation Alan Finlayson soundings Autumn 1998 issue 10 Tony Blair and the jargon of modernisation Alan Finlayson Alan Finlayson scrutinises the contradictions and political implications inside the New Labour rhetoric of modernisation. Modernisation is not an end in itself. It is for a purpose. Modernisation is not the enemy of justice but its ally. Tony Blair, Labour Party Annual Conference 1997 The jargon and rhetoric of 'modernisation' abound within the discourse of the current Labour government. It is a rhetoric that is central to the vision, or 'project' of 'New Labour'. But what does it mean? A number of competing interpretations of the New Labour phenomenon have considered the meaning of 'modernisation' but they do not always focus on it as a term fulfilling a particular rhetorical and ideological function. For example, modernisation has been taken to be: the name of the process whereby the Labour Party adopts a Thatcherite agenda; a continuation, perhaps culmination, of the party reforms first attempted by Gaitskell; simply an empty term hiding the single sin of having nothing to say. Mike Kenny and Martin Smith argue that interpretations of Blair such as these underestimate both the novelty of his political approach and the complexity of forces, structural and ideological, to which it is a response. Frustratingly, however, while advocating a 'multi-dimensional interpretative 11 Soundings framework' that can be sensitive to the discontinuities and contradictions that mark any long-term process of ideological change, they have yet to specify the procedure through which such an analysis may be undertaken or what conclusions it might lead to. They do, though, make the important point that Blair's ideological position represents more than just a capitulation to Thatcherism or the victory of a 'labourist' accommodation with capital. Rather, they argue, it entails the attempt to change 'the party's instincts and values in accordance with this new political economy'.1 It is my intention here to try and 'get at' what Blair and New Labour represent, in the context of this attempt to change values in line with a perceived new politico-economic reality, by homing in on the term 'modernisation'. hinking about the uses of the term modernisation may help expose some of the underlying conceptions of 'Blairism' and the way it conceives of Tcontemporary political change. It is not my intention to unmask a single, true meaning of modernisation or Blairism. Rather, I aim to show that a number of themes converge on this term and that, while some may have perfectly sound implications, it is also possible that without clear thought, they may become the basis for a continuing capitulation to the Thatcherite legacy. Blair's is a political project in the process of being defined. What that project comes to mean will in part depend on how 'modernisation' is conceived. Michael Rustin argued in a recent issue of Soundings: It is a notable and defining fact about 'New Labour' that for the first time the power of capital and the markets which empower it is regarded as merely a fact of life, a reality to be accommodated to, and not a problem, force to be questioned and resisted. The abstractions of 'globalisation', 'individualisation', even 'informationalism', can be used to reify the real agents and interests which dominate the contemporary world (Editorial, Soundings 8). The extent of such reification is related to the meanings given to the concept of'modernisation'. It is potentially what this concept both reflects and produces since, as we shall see, it tends to locate such processes of 'globalisation', 1. Mike Kenny and Martin Smith,' (Mis) understanding Blair', Political Quarterly, Vol.68, No.3, 1997, p229. 12 Tony Blair and the jargon of modernisation 'informationalism' (often simplistically understood and uncritically interpreted) in the exigencies of a social and historical development conceived as given. We will take the following steps: firstly we will examine some actual uses of the term in Blair's own rhetoric; we will then begin to see that the concept of modernisation carries with it certain connotations that are manifest in the Blair project, particularly a brand of celebratory patriotism; next, we will briefly consider some of the origins of the term 'modernisation'. In so doing it will become clearer that the idea of modernisation contains within it a latent theory of historical development that leads to a philosophy of given cause. This recognition will enable us to focus on the connection between the rhetoric of modernisation and the idea of the nation as the necessary form of abstract community that must follow a route through history. It is around this that Blairite notions of civic responsibility are supposed to cohere. These two implications of the term 'modernisation', a philosophy of given cause and an attachment to nation, profoundly shape and define, sometimes in contradictory fashion, the ideology of Blairism. Tony Blair's rhetoric of modernisation The speeches of Tony Blair are a good place to start tracing the logic behind 'modernisation'. It may be argued that since set-piece speeches are constructed moments of rhetoric they can reveal only the surface gloss a politician wishes to display and obscure that which they really think. But it is their status as rhetoric that makes such speeches useful for the present analysis. These set-pieces are precisely about the 'vision' a politician wishes to express, the broad brush picture within which they may encapsulate their intentions. It is this vision on which an appeal is believed to rest and which shapes the kinds of long term policy strategy they construct. lair's speeches abound with references to the 'modern' party, his 'modern' vision and the newness of this 'modern' world. The first speech Blair Bgave to the party conference after being elected Prime Minister was quite clear in terms of this general vision. He wanted Britain to be 'nothing less than the model 21st century nation ... ' the construction of which depends on 'drawing deep into the richness of the British character... old British values but a new British confidence'.2 This appeal to the nation is not unique to 2. Tony Blair, Speech to Labour Party Conference, Brighton 1997, pi. Here after LP97. Other conference speeches are referred to as LP95, LP96 etc. All page numbers are from texts issued by the Labour Party's media office at the relevant conference 13 Soundings Blair and can be found in the rhetoric of most party leaders be they Labour or Conservative. There are obvious reasons why politicians in a given nation state should base their rhetoric on an appeal to that nation. However, this is also a way in which an ideological project can achieve an appearance of legitimacy. Finding itself rooted in the given history', traditions and character of the national people, a political project can present itself as simply operating in conformity with that people. Thatcherism certainly utilised a discourse of nation in this way. Blair gives it a populist twist almost speaking as if the nation is newly freed from a colonial yoke. He speaks of people being 'liberated', of government returned to the people. This people is the bearer of the project: to return to his 1997 conference speech, he spoke of 'a quiet revolution now taking place. Led by the real modernisers - the British people' (LP97,p6). The depth of this connection between modernisation and nationhood is something to which we shall shortly return. For the moment it is enough to recognise the importance of this stress on the modernising impulse of the British people. To legitimise modernisation as a political project, Blair seeks to locate the impetus for it, not in a cadre of political elites, but in the British people themselves. Thus any potential conservative argument that reform necessarily foists unwarranted change on the nation is trumped in advance by the construction of a story where change, renewal and modernisation are intrinsic to the tradition of the nation. Hence: From the Magna Carta to the first parliament to the industrial revolution to an empire that covered the world; most of the great inventions of modem times with Britain stamped on them: the telephone; the television; the computer; penicillin; the hovercraft; radar ... change is in the blood and bones of the British - we are by our nature and tradition innovators, adventurers, pioneers (LP97, p7). In this conference speech Blair's claim was followed by a highly apposite quotation from Milton who was described as 'our great poet of renewal and recovery'. It is a description of England, taken from Areopagitica: 'a nation not slow or dull, but of quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy of discourse, not beneath the reach of any point that 14 Tony Blair and the jargon of modernisation human capacity can soar to'. The lines that follow those quoted by Blair could perhaps be seen as encapsulating his vision: 'methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks' (LP97, p7). The moment of the Miltonian intervention is particularly interesting in this context. It marked an opening sally in what would become the defining radical struggle of English history - and the period most debated by historians interested in the modernisation of Britain. That Blair should, however unconsciously, identify his project with that of one of the most epochal moments in British history is surely instructive. The upheavals and conflicts of seventeenth century England fostered a strengthened sense of particularity and identity and engendered crucial developments in the deployment of national consciousness. In such development the notion of Englishness was always related to a wider political philosophy.
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